‘I was terrified they’d been stabbed’ – teens targeted in post match machete raid

A group of teens leaving the super rugby final were robbed by machete wielding attackers in one of a spate of aggravated robberies across Hamilton, Waikato police say.

“I was terrified they’d been stabbed or something,” says the sister of one of the teenager victims.

After the Chiefs’ loss the three siblings and a friend were walking along Edgecumbe Street near the stadium when a “white, late model corolla” mounted the curb and stopped ahead of them.

“We were walking back from the rugby, four of us together down quite a dark street… They pulled up right in front of us, on the footpath driving. They jumped out with a bunch of machetes and an axe – like a pickaxe – and something that looked like a taser,” says one of the robbed teenagers who asked not to be named.

“When they first jumped out they said something like ‘alright hand us your phones’. So my brother and I gave them our phones.”

Despite there being plenty of other post-match punters around, the teenager says that few people stopped to help them out of a fear of being assailed themselves.

“My brother’s girlfriend ran away, she asked lots of people for help. Lots of people just ignored her because they were afraid. Everyone kind of stayed away because they had so many weapons.”

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After having handed over their phones and passwords to the offenders the teenager involved was still attacked.

“Two of them ran back and said ‘put the password in!” then he punched me in the face and kicked my leg. Then someone called the police and came to help, and that’s when they took it [the phone] and jumped back in the car and drove away.”

Police confirmed that an incident matching the description provided by the teenagers occurred on Saturday night.

“At 9pm, four young people leaving the rugby were threatened by two offenders, who were armed with a machete,” a police statement reads.

Police say have arrested three youths in relation to the three separate aggravated robberies in the city on Saturday night.

However, the parents of the teenagers says that one offender, though to be “about 25” is yet to be apprehended.

“The ring leader one, my son said looked about 25, had scripts tattooed on his face and neck… Police have got the youths, but they don’t have the older ones.”

Following the attack the teenagers gave statements to police at the city’s central police station. Both of the stolen phones were retrieved, the teenagers’ mother says, but police have kept them to dust for fingerprints, she says.

The mother says that it is “really scary” that the offenders singled out a group of young people alone.

“You think your kids are safe, my husband was on his way to pick them up, they were just walking out of the game with people all around them.”

Earlier in the evening about 6:05pm, Police received a report that a group of youths in a maroon car had threatened a teenage male in Pukete, and stolen his cellphone and a jacket.

At 9.10pm, a similar incident took place in Pukete, and another cellphone was stolen.

Police say that they have identified those involved in the offending and as a result three youths have been charged with three aggravated robberies.

The three arrested youths are scheduled to appear in Hamilton Youth Court on Monday.